Thursday, October 27, 2011

Merkel: "If the Euro falls, there will be war in Europe"

When a German chancellor talks of the inevitability of war in Europe if he (or she) doesn't get his (or her) way, it would be remiss of the British to ignore it. It is not clear who we should infer will go to war against whom, but Chancellor Merkel's observation is ominously similar to the threat made by her predecessor Chancellor Kohl, who once said: 'The future will belong to the Germans...when we build the house of Europe... In the next two years we will make the process of European integration irreversible. This is a really big battle, but it is worth the fight.’ A CDU document from 1994 explained: ‘Never again must there be a destabilizing vacuum of power in central Europe. If European integration were not to progress, Germany might be called upon, or tempted by its own security constraints, to try to effect the stabilization (a word replete with unpleasant historical echoes) on its own, and in the traditional way.’ Kohl asserted his conviction that if there were no further European integration, there may well be war.

His Grace happs to believe the complete opposite: the euro increases the likelihood of civil unrest and war. With the break-up of the former USSR, Quebec’s bid for independence from the Canadian federation, the former Yugoslavia’s descent into tribal warfare, the splitting asunder of Czechoslovakia, and even the fracturing of the United Kingdom, the evidence is overwhelming that states established by treaties are fragile entities. Artificially created states - that is those crafted by supranational bodies and imposed upon diverse ethnic groups and disparate cultures - tend to revert back to their ethnic groupings, often with horrific wars of independence in the struggles for nation-state recognition. Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev said that he finds it particularly surprising that European leaders are trying to construct a European Soviet after he had overseen the fall of the Russian one. The political structures of Western Europe have kept its countries in peace and friendship for the longest period of stability in its history, yet there has arisen a great dilemma. There are those who believe that the EU is yesterday’s solution to the day-before-yesterday’s problems. A union that was forged to avoid war has (we are told) yielded a sustained peace. But the greater and more successful that peace, the more remote the possibility of war becomes, and the harder it is to find a reason for the existence of the Union. The entire experiment has produced a great paradox.

62 Comments:

'Chancellor Kohl, who once said: 'The future will belong to the Germans...when we build the house of Europe... In the next two years we will make the process of European integration irreversible.'

This was the intention of those building Federalist Europe all along!.For those who haven`t realised yet we were duped!.We are now ruled by a small group of unelected men in Europe.What they couldn`t accomplish by countless wars they have accomplished by deception.How smart was that!.And our Government was complicit in the process.This is why Cameron fought tooth and nail against the referendum on Europe.

Now that it appears the Eurozone has a bridging loan to tide it over until the next crisis, we can expect an orgy of self-congratulation from the Europhile camp. The easily impressionable and shallow such as Dave and the Traitor Clegg will be waving metaphorical slips of paper and declaring in reedy voices 'Financial Peace in our Time'. Or something like it.

The victor is Germany and its magnificent Constitution, which has allowed Angela Merkel to veto anything other than proposals that were acceptable to the Federal Republic and its Lande. Unitary states such as France could not employ such negotiating tactics, even if they could afford to. The French state and the United Kingdom are mere baubles in the hands of their respective heads of government.

One wonders if the Traitor Clegg will appreciate the lesson in statecraft that has just been delivered by Berlin. But then his idea of reforming the House of Lords was to introduce 'diversity'. Silly question.

The need to reform the British Constitution along the lines of the 1978 Spanish Constitution is more urgent than ever. Your communicant predicts that before too long Germany will be offering statehood, in the form of an invitation to join the Federal Reublic, to like-minded European provinces. The thinking in Berlin will inevitably be, why don't we simply expand Germany rather than get these fools to agree to a Federal Europe? Alsace-Lorraine, anybody?

Reform of the British Constitution to include devolution of England and possible admission of a devolved united Ireland is a defence against this sort of expansionist development.

In short, your communicant forsees a scramble for Europe, and unitary states are not properly equipped to play the game.

I believe it was in 1994 that the Germans released their comments about "stabilising" Eastern Europe and they chose the date carefully - September 1st, the anniversary of the Nazi onslaught on Poland.

German politicians talk quite openly of establishing their "benevolent hegemony" in Central Europe and the Minister of Culture even cited the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation as a model and pattern for the process.

Under the Kohl administration the Bundestag passed a resolution asserting the right of Germans to resettle their "historic homelands" in Poland, the Czech Republic and elsewhere- from which they had been expelled after the war. People of provable German descent in those countries are now encouraged to take out secondary German citizenship. This is seen as a passport to jobs in the German firms which dominate the economies of those countries. At the time of Poland's accession to the EU, it was remarked that a Europe without borders would "dissolve the Oder Neisse frontier like a sugar lump in a cup of coffee". For an independent German view of this policy see www.german-foreign-policy.com

I think we should give the Merkel creature her war. All freedom loving Europeans, and that includes us, should declare war on the political, financial and bureaucratic criminals that have lead us all up this creek of excrement even as they holed the boat below the water line and tossed away the paddle.

Euro Leaders are unrivalled for proposing solutions that fall apart under detailed examination.

The EFSF leverage scheme is rather dangerous. France and Germany will be more vulnerable over PIIGS debt as this novel piece of sub-prime financial chicanery will concentrate risk. If anything goes awry their AAA ratings will fall, and contagion spread causing catastrophic financial loss at the core of the Eurozone. The calamitous fallout from this could well result in war of the type that escalates from widespread civil disorder. Probably a Balkan style bust up.

Is it likely that Italy is capable of accepting the discipline of austerity? Can the EU recapitalise banks in time if the Italians don't have what it takes to rebuild their economy? And what do you suppose will happen on the streets of Athens when the Greeks wake up and realise that the 50% haircut on bonds has just halved the value of the 35 billion Euro's worth of Greek Bonds held by their own pension funds?

Ultimately if the Euro fails there will be war is a bluff, why? because France has an "independent" Nuclear arsenal and if Germany wants to go that way one or two tactical Nuclear warheads to Berlin will quickly change any aggressive offensive Japan august 1945 anyone?

I tell you the truth, it is hard for the EU Commission to enter the world of reality. Again I tell you, it is easier for a Trojan Horse to go through the eye of a needle than for the EU Commission to enter the world of reality.

A bigger danger than war is the emegence of a megalomaniac, along the lines of Nero.

Brussels is patterning the EU after the Roman Empire. We now have rule by commissioners,effectively a "Senate"; Von Rompuy would like to see decisions made by an inner group of three, a "Triumvirate". It would take little for one strong man to emerge from among these to usurp power and declare himself emperor.

So history repeats itself Again! the German government issues veiled threats of war to what it sees as it's vassals in Europe.A weak English leader makes excuses about unity that no one believes.His 'deputy' a no hope bronze medallist in the last election, struts his stuff with swelling words that impress none, (He reminds me of the donkey in the Lion skin being led to pretend he's a King, by a monkey,to scare the people into obedience, in C.S Lewis's The Last Battle).Dave. This country is a powder keg, remember the riots a few short months ago, & you are playing with.....A lighter when you don't listen to the people of this great nation.If you want to go down in history with the greats, Sack the court jester at your elbow. Listen to the people, puncture the hot air filled Euro Zepplin & free the people of England from this tyranny. "Cry havoc & let slip the dogs of war!". OUR house is on fire, OUR families are in danger, never mind our neighbours. Step up to the plate & play the man. Then the people will love & honour a man of courage & principle.I'm sure we would rather die as heroes than live as slaves.

Damn you, Cranmer, and may you die roaring. Despite my best intellectual efforts, I am, against my will and only under the loudest possible protest, forced into agreement with a Little Englander. Has the world gone completely mad?

You folks certainly have issues, Your Grace. Canada, strong and free, beacons. How refreshing it would be to see a wave of Brit immigrants to offset a bit the flood of fake refugees and "family-reunification" freeloaders we've being swampted with. Toronto could certainly use a boost, but more realistic would be settling in the Western provinces, which are economically vibrant and consevatively inclined. Assuming you chaps can aclimatize to real winters and bad pubs. But I digress.

Just a note on the Quebec separatism issue you mentioned in passing. It's no longer an issue, really. It's an ongoing scam, waxing and waning in intensity, for which Canadians used to fall for time and time again, by a socialist-inclined, dysfunctional and corrupt province to get special and preferential political language rights and oodles of underserved "equalization payments" from the other provinces. The clamour for independence dies off in proportion to the rest of Canada's willingness and lately, eagerness, to see them go off on their own. The last election saw the near demise of Quebec's federal separatist party (I know, an oxymoron).

Merkel's ominous comments echo those of Hank Paulson, warning of 'tanks in the streets' of the US, unless he got his way with the passage of TARP. I kept an original of the 'deal sheet' he published to Congress, which granted him ad hoc dictatorial powers.

Sorry to be WAY off topic, but would like to say hello to Bluedog. Lovely looking dog from the photo.We have had 2 blue heelers and one couldnt wish for a better dog. The first we got in Australia, and unfortunately he couldnt cope with 6 months' incarceration (basically, he went mad. Never do this to a dog!) when we brought him back to the UK.The second came from england and died tragically of luekemia at the age of 6.We now have a black dog - stupid but lovable.Blue heelers are terrific family dogs, but somewhat agressive to outsiders!Thank you for letting me have my say.

We should ask ourselves what the true reasons for the last 5 great wars in Europe were REALLY all about, very much including The Napoleonic War?

Real wealth/GOLD, and therefore absolute power, and the concentration or ever more of this infinitely corrupting commodity, in ever fewer hands; would of course be the simple reason, the more complex one requiring more time then I have to spare at this moment.

I can only implore readers to THINK for themselves given the resultant events experienced by us all since 1945.

IMO; it is true to say, that without the setting up of EU there would have been another war in Europe, but not for the reasons often given.

This is because the primary reason for the financing of The 3rd Reich, and therefore the stage being set for WW1 and WW2, was to create European, as well as World government, in the respective forms of The EU, and UN.

Therefore if The EU had failed the banksters would have financed the rise, and fall of yet another Hitler, or Kaiser, or whatever it took to have the 'desired' effect.

Your Grace is perfectly correct in pointing out that instigating yet another essentially European war would seem to be impossible.

This for no other reason than that the people or either Germany, France or The UK, could not this time be persuaded to fight any kind of war for either nationalistic, or any other reason that seem apparent.

What could they possibly tell our young this time?

Fight and die for your Queen and country?

Fight and die for your Freedom?

Fight and die for your national identity?

Fight and die for your military, financial or political independence?

Fight and die for Empire?

Fight and die with WHOME, for WHAT? Come to think about it, with WHAT?

We long since lost all of the above , as well as much more besides, in spite of the reported 'fact' that we won the last 2 largely European Wars.

There has only EVER been one real war, which has always existed, and will never ever end under any possible circumstances.

This war is the war between us and them, good and evil, freedom and slavery. Surely this is the only lesson from history worth the understanding.

Perhaps this particular war is now fast approaching a well overdue showdown, however I very much doubt it.

IMO the people are now so incredibly dumbed down, complacent, and generally disinterested that who wins the next X-Factor, or becomes the next £ million a week premiere league footballer is infinitely more important to the masses, then fighting wars with anyone for any reason whatsoever.

Having said that, if for whatever reason the supermarket shelves suddenly become empty, all bets could be well and truly off.

In other words keep the bread and circus's going strong, and the mindlessly profane masses will most undoubtedly put up with absolutely anything at all.

In order for there to be war in Europe, there would first have to be a country in Europe capable of waging war. Where is this country? And what cause would unite the population to support the war in the first place? Civil unrest and riot and mayhem and violence and crime all seem likely, but war? Not until something fundamentally changes in European gov'ts - like for example a re-prioritization from the welfare state to re-armament, and a re-militarization of the population.

Carl Jacobs. Rather simpler than that. How about a few ‘border adjustments’ requested by the most powerful economy on the continent. And it will be all legal of course, once the enabling powers are sneaked through...

The Germans demand Alsaice-Lorraine as a 'border adjustment' and the French say 'No.' Then what? An even more strenuous demand? Frustrated foot-stomping? A stern finger-wagging? Nations just don't surrender sovereignty over their territory. Insert any other piece of land on Germany's border, and the result will be the same.

Anything is feasible in the future. Lots of things would have to change in the immediate future before the nations of Europe would be physically capable of fighting a war. A collapse of the Eurozone isn't going to result in armed conflict.

Carl Jacobs @ 22.39, agreed. On the other hand, this communicant believes that the Federal Republic of Germany is uniquely placed to expand by following the model of its absorption of the former DDR. Natural opportunities include Austria, The Netherlands and Flemish Belgium, possibly Silesia and of course, at some point East Prussia. The emergence of the Visegrad group to the east under Polish leadership may make eastern expansion problematic. The Poles seem to have decided to try and re-build the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in an attempt to exploit the current weakness of Russia and to pre-empt Germany. Two things the Germans believe, a) Asia begins at the Polish border, b) Prague is the most beautiful city in Germany.

With regard to Alsace-Lorraine, a direct demand is out of the question. The new game is the offering of incentives so that a population is bribed by superior benefits.

Once a certain critical mass is achieved, there is no point in establishing a Federal Europe as it already exists. It just happens to be called the Federal Republic of Germany.

One thing is for sure, and as His Grace posits, the EU isn't the end of history in Europe. One can see His Grace's earlier prediction of a Euromark zone starting to emerge.

Just a reality check. You guys are actually discussing the possibility of a fourth Reich and the rebirth of the Ottoman empire. A decade ago I read futuristic techno-thrillers about such stuff and they were entertaining, but totally unbelievable. Laughable even. Most of us here, across the Atlantic, think things are just fine with you folks, barring that little financial hiccup, and our lefties still keep pointing to the EU as the New Jerusalem and berate our governments for being "behind the times." Just so you should know.

Carl, you bring up good points and I'm inclined to agree with you...perhaps too optimistically. There is that little issue of Merkel's warning, though, which is puzzling and, coming as it is from Germany, somewhat disconcerting.

And then, Dodo brings up an issue I forgot about; Russia. And Russia is still Russia and becoming more Russian by the day. In addition to its propriatory sentiments towards Eastern Europe, Russia is now almost wholly dependent on sales of natural gas to Europe which Poland, as it just discovered, appears to have oodles of it, provided it can get technical assistance with "fracking." Coincidentally, Germany is good at this technology things and as it happens, recently decided to shut down all their reactors. Oh-oh.

O, and Carl, in addition to the fun in Europe, your Hopey-Changey-in-Chief just helped the Islamists take over most of North Africa and is about to give the keys to Iraq to the Iranians, maybe during a CNN-covered embassy rooftop pull-out a la Saigon. Afghanistan's Karzai is already making nicey to the Pakistanis, and why shouldn't he? Who else is there...Russia?

Please don't do this again, Carl, think before you guys vote. It'll be really hard to fix the world again.

Considering that Mrs Merkel's government has just slashed the Bundeswehr strength by two thirds and is doing an even better job than Camerloon on reducing their weaponry to laughable levels, just how would they fight this war?

As it happens she is very concerned about the rising Russian ambitions to the East - and France has not made any reductions in its arsenal, which, as someone else points out, is nuclear, while Con/lib/Lab parties in the UK have allowed the Treasury to undermine completely the UK deterrent. The US no longer has the capacity either, but China and Russia are both expanding theirs.

BTW the ludicrous calls for "sanctions" on Iran et al by various political morons in the UK of all parties and the usual crew of stage and screen loonies will hurt only the UK. Russia and China are doing very well out of it and have no intention of stopping.

Look at some of the realities in the world and then decide how Britain will cope with them on her own. I doubt she will, the political classes have already made their plans with various corporations based in the Middle and Far East. There is very little left in the UK that is actually UK owned any longer!

Thank you for your kind welcome, Oswin. And hello there, Ralph! (is that Ralph or Rafe?)All our dogs are of course Anglican, because that is the way they have been brought up.Appropos, I have a saying that comforts me in these dark and worrying times: I dont know what the future holds, but I know WHO holds the future!

Carl Jacobs (27 October 2011 23:19) Unfortunately, that’s what nations will be doing by their continuing ‘membership’ of the EU, surrendering their sovereignty, for ‘the greater good’. We now have German intent of this happening, and he who pays the piper calls the tune. After all, they are carrying the Euro currency on their backs – must be some reason for this apparent altruism. It won’t be Alsace-Lorraine either, it will be that part of Poland known as East Prussia to begin with. ‘Righting a historic wrong’ they’ll be shouting. If there’s any problem, they’ll step in with ‘necessary police action’. And little will be said, because as Chamberlain said, It will be just be a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing!”. One things for certain though, nobody will dare say the ‘war’ word out loud !

Oswin @ 16.43. Yes, I do as Germanys fiscal success underlies the success of the trents glorieuse and the twoare tied in a way to make such an attack virtually impossible, however whilst German thinking is predictable, the same cannot always be said for the French.

Dodo. The ‘Rabbit of Truth’ has crawled to the Inspector’s door. He is indeed half drowned, from an unsuccessful forced born again baptism. Then the weasel sank its teeth into his behind, in an apparent attempt to eat him. Am currently reviving him with single malt and milk...

The weasel lives in a burrow, lined with pages from the bible. Survives on take-a-ways and doesn’t have a friend in the world...

Good grief – Wondered why the ‘Rabbit of Truth’ was suddenly passing solids. Tis true, the Least Weasel known as Weatsop has been getting his comeuppance but nothing to worry you beasts of the fields about. As far as is known, Weatsop is still in his burrow, licking his wounds (...among the licking of other things...).

"Ye are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do [men] light a lamp, and put it under the bushel, but on the stand; and it shineth unto all that are in the house. Even so let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

As one can see across the blog comments, your light clearly shines out demonstrating god's hand in your works. His Grace didn't need to spot the IP address reuse in all your fake IDs, one just needs to look for the same light shining on multiple hills.

About His Grace:

Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’ It is the fusion of the two in public life, and the necessity for a wider understanding of their complex symbiosis, which leads His Grace to write on these very sensitive issues.

Cranmer's Law:

"It hath been found by experience that no matter how decent, intelligent or thoughtful the reasoning of a conservative may be, as an argument with a liberal is advanced, the probability of being accused of ‘bigotry’, ‘hatred’ or ‘intolerance’ approaches 1 (100%).”

Follow His Grace on

The cost of His Grace's conviction:

His Grace's bottom line:

Freedom of speech must be tolerated, and everyone living in the United Kingdom must accept that they may be insulted about their own beliefs, or indeed be offended, and that is something which they must simply endure, not least because some suffer fates far worse. Comments on articles are therefore unmoderated, but do not necessarily reflect the views of Cranmer. Comments that are off-topic, gratuitously offensive, libelous, or otherwise irritating, may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on any thread does not constitute their endorsement by Cranmer; it may simply be that he considers them to be intelligent and erudite contributions to religio-political discourse...or not.

The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning.Dr Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1945-1961

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The epithet of 'great' can be applied only to those who were defining leaders who successfully articulated and embodied the Conservatism of their age. They combined in their personal styles, priorities and policies, as Edmund Burke would say, 'a disposition to preserve' with an 'ability to improve'.

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